MPs and Peers pan government on failure to shield infrastructure from climate impacts

A committee of MPs and peers has attacked government policy for failing to ensure power and water networks and other Critical National infrastructure (CNI) are resilient to climate change impacts. “We implore ministers to get a proper grip on this issue,” the committee declared in a recent report.

In its session report: Readiness for storms ahead? Critical national infrastructure in an age of climate change, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy said it had, “uncovered an extreme weakness at the centre of government on a critical risk to the UK’s national security.”

It added: “It appears that no minister is taking responsibility for adaptation and CNI resilience.”

The committee questioned also, the regulatory regimes’ effectiveness in promoting adaptation to climate change arguing: “The current price review mechanisms for utility companies may be unsuitable for ensuring investment in long-term resilience.” It pressed government to undertake “an urgent review of price control mechanisms across all relevant infrastructure sectors.”

According to the committee, the government “seemed to have accepted that the next National Adaptation Programme needs to be much more ambitious, but called for “clear ministerial responsibility for CNI resilience.”

It said: “Despite the major risks that we outline, there are no formal mechanisms for collaboration or information-sharing between CNI sectors, and regulation is happening in siloes.”

The committee recommended that the government look to its partnership with the insurance industry to provide a pool to cover terrorist attacks. It pointed to the existence of a percentage of that pool directed at resilience as “a model for an insurance-based scheme to encourage CNI operators to invest in resilience to the changing climate.